Home
by Onyx
Summary: This is a strange one, folks. Why did Daimao, Piccolo's father, behave as he did? And what keeps Piccolo on earth? Are the reasons connected?


*Author's note - if there were a category for just plain weird, that's what I would have uploaded this story under. First, it is about the reason that Daimao Piccolo - father to the Piccolo that we all know and love - behaved as he did. What is it like to be pure evil? Also, this story was written in response to a question that, while it was asked in the series, was never really answered to my satisfaction. What holds Piccolo to earth?  
  
Yes, I know, it's a confusing note. I'm sorry - and I hope you'll be kind enough not to hold this fic against me for the rest of my natural life ^.^. Flames will be taken with a spoonful of sugar.  
  
Oh, by the way - I don't own these characters.  
  
* * *  
  
Blood everywhere. On his face, in his eyes, on his lips...he could taste it. It was salty and strangely bitter, especially to a being who was used to only water. And hot. It felt as though it should be boiling...and then, when the rush of sensation became almost too much to bear, he flung the man that he had been strangling away. The man, who wore the loose, traveling garb of a nomad, struck a rock and was still.  
  
Daimao licked his lips absently, and moved on through the streets.  
  
The burning streets.  
  
There was something magic, he decided, about a dying town. Something in the lighting, probably - orange and red were such striking colors. Or maybe it was in the way that the crackling holocaust of thatched roofs and wooden walls drowned out the screams of "Ma! Mamono!" that rose from the throats of the fleeing villagers. No, it was the heat. That was it. The warmth. The color. The heady feeling of life, like an artery pulsing beneath a thin layer of flesh. Like a moth at a candle. It filled something inside him, some huge, gaping void...even as it left him emptier.  
  
Come home...  
  
Daimao Piccolo felt as though he had caved in on himself for a fraction of a second - but only that. Not yet, he thought back irritably. I can't come to you yet.   
  
But you love this...  
  
I love nothing.  
  
It was the same voice - the voice of the otherworld, the voice of the other Lookout...the darker lookout. The place arranged specifically for Chikyusei's Daimao. Daimao Piccolo knew that call well; it was like the mirror image of the voice that had summoned Kami to the Tenkai. He had been there for that.  
  
He would not go. No matter how strong the call, he would never put himself through such a ritual again.  
  
No matter how empty he felt.  
  
"Piccolo..."  
  
The demon looked up, searching the flaming streets with eyes the color of ash. Standing tall and firm, a statue surrounded by tapestries of flame and avarice, was Kami-sama himself. "Stop this," his counterpart demanded.  
  
Daimao laughed out loud. "Why? Because Kami-sama commands it of me?" He bowed sweepingly. "Far be it from me to displease you."  
  
"Because it's destroying you."  
  
Shaking his head wryly, Daimao said, "That is no reason, Kami. No reason at all."  
  
Kami-sama drew himself to his full height, his battle gi - the same indigo color as Daimao's, but bearing a different symbol - flapping around him in the fire-wind. He opened his mouth to speak...and the demon yawned. "Don't play the noble deity with me, Kami. I know better."  
  
Kami's eyes darkened, which made the two of them seem all the more symmetrical. "You know nothing. You have nothing. Let this," he gestured at the flames, "go...and come home."  
  
Home.  
  
Daimao felt something in his chest drop. Home. There was no such thing. "You're wrong, Kami-sama," he said smoothly. "Very wrong. I have something...one thing. This." He lifted a hand, soaked with blood...crimson and green, living colors. "Fight me." It was not a request...but all the same, there was something desperate in it. Something crazed, some sort of terrible longing.  
  
The two of them came together like notes in a chord; melody and harmony, high and low, darkness and light. They circled and spun, flame licking their heels. There was sweat and sound and streams of indigo - and there was the chi that crackled around them. Constructive and destructive, neutralizing one another.  
  
Intensity. Life. Like the fire, like the blood...but this was a far stronger draught than either. It was overpowering, numbing as the most concentrated of wines - and the sharp edges of emptiness in Daimao were blunted a bit by the severity of the encounter...for a moment, it seemed to him that his heart might actually be beating. The pain was incredible, for he felt the blows he landed as acutely as those which struck him...but oh, it was beautiful.  
  
And, like all truly beautiful things, it ended far too soon. Kami broke the dance abruptly, wheeling back and gasping, a fresh swath of indigo falling across his insignia. Daimao tried to follow, but he realized then that he could not...that he was thoroughly spent. Yet, he did not want it to end. That was the last thing he had ever wanted.  
  
"This...isn't...over..." Kami hissed, drawing away. He disappeared into the smoke moving in slow, broken angles.  
  
Daimao knew that - he had always known it. There could be no end to it, ever. Not for the two of them.  
  
He landed slowly on trembling legs and began limping numbly away from the center of town...or, more accurately, away from the misshapen, scorched structures that had once been a town. He was just on his way out when the whole wall of one building collapsed...and he saw them. Two humans crouching in a half-burned house. Or, more specifically, a woman was crouching in the house. A child, a young boy, was behind her, clutching her robes fearfully. The woman was obviously older, though she was still tall, sinewy and tough like a boulaba tree. She had only a few wrinkles around her eyes, and her ebony hair was streaked with white. She stared at him for perhaps a second, then pursed her lips and turned away from him...to the child. And she began to sing, soothingly.  
  
Daimao could not hear her words - the still-raging fire wilted them. He could only hear a bit of the tune...it was an old song, a shepherds' song. He recognized it from before...from Yunzabit heights. They used it to calm their sheep...and to frighten wolves.  
  
The demon felt one corner of his lips lifting. How foolish. He was no wolf. But he stopped to listen anyway; if she was going to be entertaining, then he would take advantage of it...and then he realized that he was no longer listening to her.  
  
He was listening to a memory...or perhaps it was a dream. A different voice, a strong baritone, humming an old, old tune...making sounds, strange, unfamiliar sounds...and yet, here and there, snatches of meaning...  
  
Even the stars fade, child,  
  
Even the suns must share watch...  
  
For though the sky is larger than they,  
  
They do not face it alone.  
  
Remember that when the distances grow,  
  
When they become like weights to your heart...  
  
In change we live, in living change...  
  
We must be made new again.  
  
The oceans stretch far but not forever,  
  
They give us life; that too, has an end...  
  
See first that you begin, love.  
  
See first that you begin.  
  
In all the change, in all that falls,  
  
There's only one gift worthy to give...  
  
In living change, we change to see...  
  
But it is for the love we live.  
  
The feeling of an arm around him...of being released into something hard and metal and dead...a rumbling sound like a growl in his father's...father's?...chest...and fireflies outside his window...  
  
He was never sure afterward whether the house collapsed before or after he blasted it. He decided that it didn't matter - the singing had stopped either way. Of which he was glad. It had been making him feel things that he did not understand.  
  
He kept walking.  
  
Daimao did not stop until he reached a mesa...a large, empty mesa. He perched on the edge absently, the dull aches of his wounds filling him with a wonderful numbness, a distraction from the terrible hole that seemed to gape in his soul. He knew what the problem was - he was not whole. His soul had been patched together too quickly; there were gaps and holes and tattered edges flapping around inside of him, and they pained him terribly.  
  
Like that strange song in words that he shouldn't have been able to understand. Like the memory of green skies and gaunt, tough trees shaped by wind, of glittering grass...of wet, glittering eyes and a last kiss on the forehead.  
  
The Demon King bowed his head until it rested on his chest, grieving for things he could not remember having lost.  
  
* * *  
  
"Mr. Piccolo? Are you okay?"  
  
Piccolo's eyes snapped open. "I'm fine, Gohan."  
  
"Well? Why, then?" the boy asked in his most curious of voices.  
  
Piccolo shook his head slowly to clear it. What had his student asked him again? Ah yes...why had he stayed on Chikyusei. Why hadn't he gone to new Nameksei. The former demon looked over his shoulder at his student. Gohan was staring up at him earnestly, a single, rebellious lock of hair fluttering in front of one eye.  
  
"This planet," he answered slowly, looking back into the sky, "seems to have grown on me."  
  
"But don't you want to get to know your people a little better?" Gohan asked, obviously concerned. "I mean, I'm glad you stayed, really glad...but..."  
  
"They are not my people, Gohan."  
  
Silence. Then, hopelessly confused, "But Mr. Piccolo, they look just like you, and..."  
  
"That doesn't matter." The Namekseijinn turned, and did something monumentally uncharacteristic: he dropped to one knee. Slowly, deliberately, he tapped the boy on the shoulder with one long, taloned finger. "You are my people. You, and...gods help me...your father. But if you let that slip, I'll have to kill you."  
  
Gohan blinked. When next he spoke, his forehead wrinkled. "Mr. Piccolo...I don't understand."  
  
"Sometimes...connections...between people are more important than where they were born, or what color they are, or even," he added wryly, "how many fingers they have." At this, he held up a four-fingered hand for emphasis. "Home is here," he continued, tapping the side of the boy's head lightly, "and here," he added, tapping the left side of his chest. "As long as you remember that, you'll never get lost."  
  
Gohan stood still for a long minute, pondering. Piccolo stood up slowly, watching his reaction. And then, the boy looked up at him with an ear to ear grin and wrapped both arms around one of his legs. "Hai, Mr. Piccolo - I see now."  
  
Piccolo stood frozen for a long moment, trying to decide whether he was more embarrassed or indignant - indignant won out. "What have I told you about doing that?" he snapped, crossing his arms.  
  
Laughing out loud, Gohan took a step back, raising both hands in mock surrender. "Sorry, sir."  
  
The former demon narrowed his eyes. "You'd better be," he remarked in a humorous half-growl. Without further ado, he launched his eyelasers, which the boy nimbly sidestepped. "Because if you aren't, then you will be soon." The sparring match was on, bright against the sunset - red and orange, black and green. Living colors - as well as the one thing that he had been missing before, but had not known. The sound of a child laughing. 


End file.
